Fiber optics have become the standard cabling medium used by data centers to meet the growing needs for data volume, transmission speeds, and low losses. An optical fiber connector is a mechanical device disposed at an end of an optical fiber that acts as a connector of optical paths, for example, when optical fibers are joined together. An optical fiber connector may be coupled with an adapter to connect an optical fiber cable to other optical fiber cables or devices. An adapter may generally include a housing having at least one port that is configured to receive and hold a connector to facilitate the optical connection of one connector to another connector or device. For example, an LC adapter is typically configured to receive one or more standard sized LC connectors.
Hybrid adapters are configured to join different types of optical fiber connectors. At least one disadvantage of traditional hybrid adapters is that they are configured to couple two full size connectors causing the adapter ends to be bulky and, therefore, to take up too much space on both sides of the adapter. This is a major shortcoming in most hybrid adapter applications where when one end of the adapter is intended to be disposed inside a small module, as both the corresponding adapter end and the connector occupy too much space within the module.
Certain conventional hybrid adapters have been designed to accommodate coupling a standard full size optical fiber connector with a simplified optical fiber connector. A simplified optical fiber connector is merely a ferrule that may or may not have a metallic flange assembled onto the ferrule used to terminate the end of an optical fiber. At least one disadvantage of such hybrid adapters is that the simplified connector is held rigidly inside the adapter. However, for best optical performance, both ferrules in a mated pair should be floating, and subject to spring pressures that push the end faces of a pair of mated ferrules together. Unlike standard size optical fiber connectors that include an extension spring pre-loaded behind the ferrule which allow the ferrule to float, a simplified optical fiber connector may not include a spring behind the ferrule. Thus, the simplified optical fiber ferrule will be held rigidly inside one end of the adapter and the connection formed by the hybrid adapter will be subject to degraded performance.
Accordingly, there is a need for hybrid optical fiber adapters that occupy less space than conventional hybrid adapters, while enabling better optical performance by providing spring or spring-like pressure that allows the ferrules to float.